Four Habits of Jesus We Should Imitate | Matthew 9:35-38 | Pastor Neil McClendon

Neil McClendon, Lead Pastor
Grand Parkway Baptist Church


Four Habits of Jesus We Should Imitate
Matthew 9:35-38
1. Where He went, v. 35a
Preference asks, “What would I like to do?”
Responsibility asks, “What needs to get done?”

2. What He did, v. 35b
Jesus’ ministry consisted of three things...
a) teaching in their synagogues
2 Timothy 3:16
Notice these four words...
• teaching
• reproof
• correction
• training in righteousness
b) proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom
•
c) healing every disease and affliction

3. How He felt, v. 36
4. What He prayed, v. 37
Laborers embrace two things...
a)the harvest is plentiful
b) there is a Lord of the harvest

Mental worship...
1. Do your life choices reflect your preferences or your responsibility?
2. How does a person proclaim the gospel of the Kingdom in today’s culture?
3. Do you see the Bible as helpful or hurtful to the true desires of your heart?
4. Are you known for your compassion? If not, what emotion are you known for?
5. Are you willing to be the answer to your prayers?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Let me ask you a question. Do you believe the Bible is profitable? Because I said to him what I'll say to all of you, unless and until you believe the Bible's profitable for you, you'll never read it like you should. You'll never view it like you should. You'll never think of it like you should. What do you mean it's profitable? Ask yourself this question. Do you see the Bible is helpful or hurtful to the true desires of your heart? This is the question I asked the man. I said, Do you see the Bible is helpful or hurtful to the true desires of your heart? And he said, This was so beautifully honest. He goes, Well, my problem is it ain't gonna let me do what I want to do. How refreshing is that? And I said, Yes, but when the Bible tells you that what you want to do is sin, it's keeping you from something, but at the same time, it's inviting you to something.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

This podcast is brought to you by Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people to know, enjoy, and glorify God. For more information about Grand Parkway, visit our website at grandparkway.org.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Amen. Amen. Let's pray together, church. Uh Lord Jesus, your goodness. Uh the Bible says your goodness, no, of your goodness no one can tell. Uh the Bible is a byproduct of your goodness. We've tasted and seen that the Lord is good. So we have a lot to say about this, Lord. But we have a lot to say because you have a lot to give. And so, Lord, let us just think differently about the your word today. It's not a list of rules and regulations, it's a manifestation of your goodness to your people. And so, Lord, let our mind be changed about how we think about the Bible, okay? Because we're gonna open it up and it's gonna open us up. And it gets down to the get down. And so, Lord, we welcome that. We invite that into the deep nooks and crannies of our lives and our loves. So, Holy Spirit, bring it to bear on us. So we bring something bigger than ourselves to bear on the culture around us. This is our prayer. We prayed in Jesus' name, and everyone said, Amen, amen. You could have a seat. If you got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open up to Matthew chapter 9. Matthew chapter 9. I want to talk to you this morning about the four habits of Jesus we should uh imitate. Now, obviously, we should imitate all the things of Jesus, but in the text, there's four things that he did that were central to his mission that I think we should recapture these and make these central to the mission of the church, okay? And so I'm gonna start reading in Matthew chapter 9, verse 35. Now, let me just say this there's a shift that takes place in the text today. So far, we if you're our guest today, we we preach expositorily, which means we preach the books of the Bible. And we started in Matthew in the very beginning, and we met Jesus. We saw kind of where he came from, how he got here, we heard his teaching on the Sermon on the Mount. Uh, the past couple of chapters, eight and nine, we've seen his power and his authority. And now we see that Jesus is kind of up to something. It's not just, hey, you watch me do all this. Uh he's got a succession plan in place, and it involves his disciples, the people who profess to know and worship and follow him. Uh, but there's four habits uh of Jesus that we should imitate. And let me just read the text. Matthew chapter 9, verse 35 says it like this. And Jesus went throughout all the cities and the villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. And then he said to his disciples, The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Now, what do I mean, four habits of Jesus, that we should imitate? Well, there's four of them. I'll point to them in the text. The first one is right there in verse 35, and it's where he went. It's where he went. The Bible says it like this. And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages. All the cities. Now think cities bustling, hustling. They got a Starbucks, they got some Airbnbs, they got nice places to eat, they got chewies with that with that jalapeno ranch dip. Amen. That they got it. Some of y'all just decided where you're going to lunch right there. Cities got all this stuff. And then there's this little word, and villages. Villages do not have chewies, they don't have torches, they don't have nice hotels and places to stay. But the Bible says that Jesus went right there. It says, and Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages. For Jesus, it was not about proximity or preference, but it was about responsibility. He didn't have a preference about where he went and where he lived. He lived with a responsibility to God that took him everywhere. Let me say that again. It wasn't about his preference, it was about his responsibility. He lived with the sense of responsibility to God that took him anywhere and everywhere. Now, you would be surprised if you knew how many people in ministry uh that had a preference about where they wanted to live, the kind of church they wanted to work at, and what part of the country they want to be in. I want to be close to my friends, my in-laws so I can get free babysitting or certain amenities. And here's the thing preference and responsibility ask different questions, okay? Your preference asks, what would I like to do? Now, are you aware that all of us, me at the top of the list, all of us in this room have preferences? Are you are you aware of that? Say amen. I'm not trying to tell you you shouldn't have preferences. I'll go as far as to tell you you cannot not have preferences. You just have preferences. That's just what you do. And there's nothing wrong with that, okay? Here's what I am saying, though. I'm not saying, oh, act like you don't have preferences. I am saying this: embrace your responsibilities because preference asks, what would I like to do? Responsibility asks what needs to get done. What needs to get done. And so do your life choices reflect your responsibility or your preferences? Because life doesn't just happen in the cities, okay? It happens in the villages as well. And Jesus went through all the cities and the villages. And if you live with preferences, you're gonna miss out on a lot of incredible opportunities because you had kind of a preference. I got to be in a certain city, certain size, and got this and got that. Before I became the pastor here, I traveled full-time and preached all over the country. And so my thing was I'm gonna I want to go where nobody else wants to go. Everybody wanted to do the big things, and I did plenty of big things. I spoke at a lot of big churches, big conferences, all nothing wrong with any of that, okay? But I also was like, I'll go anywhere. If people call and I got the data available, I'm not gonna say, well, I gotta have a certain people. This is what people would say back then. They they do it to this day. Well, I've got to maximize my effectiveness, and I want to take opportunities to have at least a thousand people at them. And and I just, because they're city people, they're not village people. And and why no? Oh, I lost some of you. When I said village people, some of y'all just went there, okay? And so when I was traveling, I was just, I didn't put it out there, but people knew. I just go, like, I got a call one time. I was in a youth camp playing pickup basketball with a pastor named Joe, and we got done at the end of the week. He said, Hey man, would you ever come to my church and preach? And I said, Yeah, I'd be glad to. And he said, Yeah, but I mean, I live in Lai Pan, Texas. Anyone know where Laipan, Texas is? Thank you. I rest my case. Look it up today. It's about as big as a postage stamp, okay? And he said, I want you to come and preach Sunday, just teach the word Sunday through Wednesday, and we'll see what happens. I get there on Sunday morning, two brothers walk up to me with starch wranglers and cowboy boots with their thumbs in their pockets, and they said, Are you here on faith? And I'm like, Hi, my name's Neil. What's your name again? And they said, Because if you ain't living on faith, you ain't gonna preach about faith. I don't want to hear you. Anybody get right and talk, you may not be worth your salt. By the way, we hear you're here on a love offer. Yeah, I live on faith, I'm here on a love offer. Whatever you people give at the end of the week, that's great with me. We ain't giving squat till we hear you preach. People in the villages talk different from people in the city. And I was just like, these are my kind of people right here now. Now, hey, it's Wednesday night, the last night I was there, these two walked up, both of them pulled out of their pocket a wad of Benjamins. You know what that is? Hundies and started just peeling them off. Hey, man, you spoke the word, you were faithful every time. When the Bible says you're worth double honor, we want to double whatever the church gives you. See, and I tell my friends, oh, I gotta speak to at least 500 kids. I'm like, You're missing out, man. You're a city person. Go to the villages as well. Like I went to a town called Panola, Oklahoma. Population 1,302 people. The guy picked me up at the airport, the pastor would drive in there, and I said, Where am I staying? He goes, Oh boy, you're staying in my house. Big in hotels. And I said, How big is this city? He goes, It's kind of a community. It's a city. We're incorporated, but we ain't got a hotel. And so I stayed in his house and in the guest bathroom, the bathtub, no shower, by the way. Yeah, get you some of that. No shower, and the bathtub was pink and about that long. I had to fold my body and get a plastic cum to rinse myself off. But I saw things that week I never saw in the cities. This cat would get up at like four in the morning and he'd go preach on local access cable and come back, TV, come back, wake me up. He'd say the same thing every morning. He'd knock on the door. Coffee's hot, let's get that way. I'd be like, Where am I? Oh, I'm in Panola. This is the guy who took me to the Sonic for lunch one day, reached over in his 66 Chevelle that he drove, opened the glove box, and pulled out a uh a circle of 20s about that big with a rubber band around them. And he said, Now there's a biker gang on the outskirts of town. They probably run drugs, but they heard I had a preacher coming. They came to the church and said, Here, bless the preacher, take him out to eat. Now, this is probably drug money. I can't prove it. We can fast. This is what happens when you go to the village. You live in the city, you're missing out. I'm I tell my friends, y'all are missing out. Oh man, you would do and he said, We can fast and not have lunch, or we can bless this and order lunch. I just reached out the window and pushed the button. Let me order. Yes, sir. I also went, I I spoke, now I did pick that, I spoke at uh super summer when you're back then you're an itinerant speaker guy. That was like the you made it if you spoke at super summer. I not only did super summer, but I spoke supersummer at Baylor University, Waco Hall, 2,200 students packed in there for youth camp. Preached my guts out all week. Like four or five months earlier, somebody had called and said, Hey, we're gonna have a youth night at our church. Would you come and preach? It's just Friday night. I said, Absolutely, I'd be honored. I'm gonna be awake. I'll be about two hours from you. I'll finish late Friday afternoon. I got some stuff after Supersummer's over, and I'll just drive out there. Okay, great. I lived in Fort Worth. I said, I'll just drive home. Friday, I'm driving there to the church thinking, why did I say yes to this? I am so exhausted, and I'm driving, and this is before this is how long ago this was. We didn't have cell phones. There's no GPS. I got instructions. I wrote them on a piece of paper and I found it on a map. And then the written instructions said, turn off the highway and follow the blacktop for two miles. How many of y'all know what a blacktop road is? Say amen. So I turned off the blacktop and I go down there, and up on the hill, there's a church on cinder blocks. And I just saw it, this is awesome. And at the base of the steps, the concrete steps you get at McCoy's, there were four four-wheelers parked there. And I got out and the preacher said, I couldn't be more excited. We got a record crowd. The kids drove their four-wheelers through the pasture to get here. I was like, Okay, I'm not tired anymore. I walked in, there were seven students there. 18 adults, 1820 adults, average age, about 75. And so I preached my guts out, and four of those kids gave their life to Christ that night. They thought Billy Graham had come. I mean, these old people coming up to me, oh my gosh, I think, I think we got revival, brother. Can you stay and preach all next week? I'm like, I gotta go home. I got another youth camp next week. And so I'm done. I'm walking to my car and I hear a voice behind me because people in the villages talk different than people in cities. And if all you do, if your preference is city and big, you're gonna miss out on some kingdom things. I hear a voice behind me, Preacher, you coming to the pie social. Yes, ma'am, I was just putting my Bible in my car. I'd be right there. And I was going through it in my Buick Skylark, and I was walking, like, Lord, I need energy. And I walked in and she said, I made my famous buttermilk pie. And this other said, Well, you gotta have my chocolate cake. I sat down a healthy man, I stood up a diabetic. Two hours later, I had two pieces of pie, one piece of cake, lady sat beside me, and she goes, I tell you what, that's the way to preach when I was a girl. I'm like, when were you a girl? I went to high school with Moses. Give me a break. And I said, Well, tell me about you. And she said, Well, my husband Herman, he died seven years ago. I said, What's that been like? She said, The Lord's faithful. She had those cat-eye glasses with a chain around her neck. She took those bad boys off, reached down the front of her blouse, and pulled out a napkin, a anchor, I mean a Kleenex. I was like, I don't need to see that. And she's dabbing her eyes and just talking, and I'm thinking, all my friends were like, Oh, I've got to have these 500 kids or I can't go. I'm like, you are missing out. Here's why. Look at me. Your preferences have a smallness attached to them. Your responsibility has a bigness attached to it. You will never find the bigness of responsibility in the smallness of your preferences. Jesus was about responsibility, not preference. And my friends are climbing on me, hey man, heard you went to first Baptist hoot and holler. And I'm like, oh yeah, I did. Because all you monkeys wanted to go to, you know, the big first Baptist downtown. Nothing wrong with that. I did Houston's Houston's first. I did their camp. I did Prestonwood in Dallas. I did stuff for them, champion for it. Nothing wrong with those big churches. But if all you do is go to cities and you don't go to the villages, you're not being Christ-like. And you are ruled by your preferences and you miss out on some beautiful, beautiful, Christ-like experiences. So the four habits of Jesus we should imitate. Number one, where he went. Now, by the way, after the pie social, I almost forgot this part. I got excited remembering it. I'm walking out to my car thinking, I gotta drive to Fort Worth. And I hear, hey preacher, come back now. We gotta settle up with you. And I'm like, no, sir, no, I don't want anything. No, no, the Bible says not to muzzle on ox while he's treading out grain. And so I look back and he reached in his shirt pocket. You gotta live in a village to keep stuff in your shirt pocket. Ain't none of you got something in your shirt pocket right now. He had two things in his shirt pocket. Number one, a pouch of red man golden blend chewing tobacco. And right behind that was the church checkbook. I thought, well, what would Wade Burgess do with that? And he said, Brother, I'm the church treasurer. As he whips it out on the hood of his truck and he pulls out of his pocket protector and clicks a pin and says, How about $75? And I said, How about I pay you for getting to be around salt of the earth, people like you and all these other people? He said, No, brother, we ain't gonna cheat you. $75 it is. I got in my car, I drove about a half mile down the blacktop road, and I hit the brakes and just stopped and balled my eyes out. Because this little voice in me says, Hey, anybody can go speak to the 2200 students. Don't ever get past the seven kids that rode their four-wheelers through the pasture to get here. And I was like, I won't. Oh Jesus, thank you for this. This was so good. I I I I floated home to Fort Worth. I don't remember how I got there. I was I I was on such an emotional high. Why? Because for the first time in my life, I escaped the gravitational pull of my preferences and I walked into my responsibility and I found Jesus there. You will find Jesus in the realm of your responsibilities in a way and to a depth of intimacy that you will never find him in your preferences because they are too small. Here's the second thing I want us to have. Where he went, number two, what he did. What he did, verse 35. Y'all done got me worked up here, all right? I gotta calm down here. And he went throughout all the cities and the villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every affliction. That's the three things he did. He taught in their synagogues, okay? He proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom and healed every every disease and affliction. We'll just take them one at a time, okay? Teaching in their synagogues. By the way, notice that Jesus distances himself from the religious establishment of the day. He says, teaching in their synagogues. Don't make me responsible for what y'all do down here. This is the hardest teaching Jesus did because it was like talking to people who thought they knew it all. This is why he always taught scripture. This is why anytime he would pick up the scroll of Isaiah or he would read from scripture and he would correct what people have been teaching improperly. Because here's one thing that Jesus believed. He believed what the Bible says about itself. What do you mean? 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 16 says this all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Now, look at the very beginning. There's two things. If you don't believe these first two things, then the rest of this doesn't matter. What are those two things? All scripture is breathed out by God. That's the first thing. Now, when I say all scripture, no, it's that it's capitalized. It's not like it's referring to the Bible. When you say scripture, it's not like, well, you know, the Quran is scripture. No, it's not. The Book of Mormon is scripture. No, it's not. No, this is not in the outline, but let me just tell you this: there's this thing called the test of canonicity. How did things get in the Bible? How do we determine, how did they determine what books are going to be in the Bible? Well, they had these three litmus tests that it had to get past, okay? Apostolicity, universality, and orthodoxy. You're like, oh, that's great. What does that mean? Apostolicity is this a big weird word. It means it was either under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, it was recorded by an apostle or someone close to that apostle. Someone that saw and heard for themselves, like Matthew. So apostolicity. Secondly, universality. In other words, hey, did the church back then accept this book as authoritative? That's why if you have a Catholic Bible, you got books in there that aren't in the Bible. They're called the Apocrypha. They're called the Apocryphal books. They're like historical narratives. They did not make it into the canon of Scripture because they do not have the authority of Scripture, because they were not breathed out by God. All scripture is breathed out by God. If you think, well, the Bible is just a book that was written by men. No, it was it was breathed out by God, it was inspired by God, and it's profitable. But uh apostolicity, universality, and then the third one is orthodoxy. Orthodoxy means, hey, did this line up with what was being taught by the New Testament church? And a lot of those books didn't make it. Because see, we live in a country now where spirituality is in vogue and Christianity isn't. So people will find something they like to read. Like I'm reading a book right now called Theo of Golden.

unknown 18:34

Whew!

SPEAKER_01 18:35

Kills me. Killing me. And I'm just, I mean, I hear Roberto fly whatever, killing me softly. I'm like, oh my gosh. I think I know what's coming and I don't want to get done. I just want to feel it to the depths of my being. I'm like, oh, I want to be a better person. I want to be more generous. I want to be more kind. I want to be more thoughtful. Some I read this is just a goofy novel some lawyer wrote. I just think, dad gum, I need to set my game up. I could be in danger of hell here. I gotta do something different here. But but but it doesn't have the authority of scripture. Great book, doesn't have the authority of scripture, okay? Uh uh all scripture is breathed out by God. That's the first thing you gotta believe. The second thing is that it's profitable. It's breathed out by God and it's profitable. Talking to a man in counseling recently, and he said, Hey, you reference the Bible a lot, but not everybody agrees with you about the Bible. You're aware of that, right? And I said, What do you, what's your deal with the Bible? He said, Well, I mean it's written by men. We had that little conversation, and then later on I just said, Let me ask you a question. Do you believe the Bible is profitable? Because I said to him what I'll say to all of you, unless and until you believe the Bible's profitable for you, you'll never read it like you should. You'll never view it like you should, you'll never think of it like you should. What do you mean it's profitable? Ask yourself this question: Do you see the Bible is helpful or hurtful to the true desires of your heart? This is a question I asked the man. I said, Do you see the Bible is helpful or hurtful to the true desires of your heart? And he said, This was so beautifully honest. He goes, Well, my problem is it ain't gonna let me do what I want to do. How refreshing is that? And I said, Yes, but when the Bible tells you that what you want to do is sin, it's keeping you from something, but at the same time, it's inviting you to something. Think about what it's inviting you to. He said, Well, I mean, I just like women. And I said, but I'm saying you, yeah, I love that you like women, uh, but I'm saying that God created you to be with one woman in the covenant of marriage, and that way you can be known, not just loved. Yes, say it, baby girl. From the back row, my little friend Teddy. We've had a tongue. Is there an interpretation? Okay, knock off the galosileia back there, little kid. Yes, but but I all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable, profitable for four things. He says teaching, reproof, correction, training, and righteousness. Let me just put some words on each one of these teaching. Uh, this is not just this is not a verb, it's a noun. It refers to that which is taught. Or the the the the the Bible or the word for that is doctrine. This body uh of information, this is what the Bible teaches. Uh reproof. Uh reproof means it establishes a standard by which all things can be tested. If there is no objective standard anywhere in existence, then you would never feel bad. Let me say it again. If there was no such thing as an objective standard that existed, you would never feel bad because there would be nothing to convict you. People say, Well, I have a conscience. Yes, you have a conscience, but your conscience does not have the authority of divine conviction. Your conscience can make you feel bad. Divine conviction, you feel bad, but you do something about it. There's a difference in those two. And just I have a conscience and all there's conviction. So reproof, the third one is correction. It said it's profitable for teaching, reproof, and for correction. Uh it restores things to an upgrade. Upright and right state. Think about going to your chiropractor. You can kind of feel you're kind of out of sorts, and my I got some pain shooting down my leg. I have a friend that's a chiropractor. He was in the first service, sitting back up there and just staring down on me. What are you gonna say? You know you're in trouble. You go to the chiropractor, and he's got you on the little table, and all of a sudden he puts his hands on you. He's like, Oh yeah, and then the ceiling opens up and stuff comes out of the ceiling, and the table starts sliding out. Here's how you know you can get cracked because he starts just kind of patting you and making small talk. Hey, how's Marcy and the girls? I just tense up. He's like, relax, relax, let me have your body. Nope. Nope. And all of a sudden, the middle of the table drops out. I'm like, hey, ho, ho, where, where, where, where'd this part go? And he's like, shut up, Neil. And all of a sudden, whack! And I hear like somebody's crushing crackers. But, true or false, you get up off that table and you're like, oh man, I feel better. Here's why. You that they call it an adjustment. You got a correction, you got an adjustment. Here's what the Bible's profitable for: to correct you and to give you a little alignment when you need it. Okay? This is what he means when he says correction, then training in righteousness. Training in righteousness is basically this a right understanding of your new identity as a Christian. You ever notice that no one had to train you to be unrighteous? No one ever had to say to you, this is how you lie. No one ever had to say, hey students, this is how you hide apps on your phone so your parents don't know what's on there. Nobody had to do that. No. No one had, hey, this is how you gossip, this is how you slander somebody, this is how you be a catty little person. No, no. But this is why the Bible says training in righteousness. We have to be trained because we by nature are unrighteous. But the good news of the gospel is that you can be trained in righteousness. This is why it's important that you find a church that teaches you the whole counsel of God's word, because every time you hear a sermon, what's really happening is you're being trained in righteousness. You're putting off your old self, which is corrupt through deceitful desires, and you're putting on your new self, which is created in the image of God, in true righteousness and holiness, is what Ephesians 4 says. Because, hey, this stuff by nature, that's easy. Unrighteousness is easy to be trained in righteousness. And the more you're trained, the more you get to experience your capacity, okay? He says he he did that. He second thing Jesus did was proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom. It's not the gospel of the individual, it's not the gospel of marriage or money or prosperity, it's about the kingdom and the king. It's such a priority in the mind of God that back in chapter 6, Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and everything else, and all these things he said will be added unto you. Now, what are all these things? What's he referring to? If you go back and read Matthew 6, you'll see that it's like, what will I eat and drink? What will I wear? Jesus said crazy things like is not the body, is not is not life more than food and the body more than clothing. Basically, he says, seek first the kingdom of God, and I'll take care of everything else. You ever wonder if the reason God's not taking care of everything else because you're not seeking first the kingdom? You see, he's super simple. He just says, Seek first the kingdom of God. Matthew 6, verse 33. And all these things that everybody worries about. You get to the end of, we're in Matthew 9, Matthew 24, which we'll get to in seven years. Uh that they're walking out of Jerusalem. Yes, I get your emails. Be quiet. Uh they're walking out of Jerusalem and they're drawing the attention to the buildings. Like that Jesus, look at this. Look at this, isn't this awesome? And Jesus is just like, yeah, not one stone's gonna be left upon another. Enjoy this beautiful architecture. And they're like, Oh, what? What is this gonna happen? And what will be the end of the age? Give us a sign. And he said, You'll hear wars and rumors of wars. You know, all this stuff's gonna happen. But but the end's still to come. Nation will rise against nation, the love of most will grow cold, and then he gets to verse 14 and he says, And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. There's a God, he says, This gospel of the kingdom, don't miss this. There's a gospel you can only preach in America because only Americans are gullible enough to believe it. Oh, God doesn't want you to suffer, God wants you to be successful. Discover the champion in you. Hey, by the way, look at me. Look at me. Unbiblical teachers are God's judgment on non-discerning people. That's what God gives congregations over to that. So it's not the person up front, it's the people in the seats that sit there every Sunday and take it and support it. Yes, it's a sign they're being judged. Happy Sunday. Some of y'all are like, maybe we're being judged. I don't know. No, proclaim the gospel of the kingdom. That's what he did. It wasn't the gospel of marriage, it wasn't the gospel of personal success, the gospel of the individual. This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached, proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony. By the way, that phrase, that word testimony means evidence. When you proclaim the kingdom, the gospel of the kingdom, it's evidence that the king has come and he brought the kingdom with him. And this is what the culture needed back then, it's what our culture today needs. Third thing Jesus Jesus did was he healed every disease and every affliction. Get ready to be honest. He healed every disease and every affliction. You ever look around today and wonder why Jesus still doesn't do that? Hello. You ever wonder like, hey Jesus, it says right here in the Bible, you healed every disease and every affliction. Did you run out of power to do that? What made you stop? Here's what you got to understand about the miraculous. The miraculous established a platform for the gospel to be preached. It demonstrated the power of God so that people be open to the word of God, which led them to a relationship with God. Let me say that again. The miraculous, like in the book of Acts, God would do something miraculous. And then people would draw a crowd and then they'd preach the gospel to them. And these people would in turn come to faith in Jesus. This is why Jesus, remember earlier in Matthew, he healed somebody and he said, Don't tell anybody. It's called the messianic secret because he didn't want some surface following. Jesus does not want fans. He didn't even want friends, he wants followers. People that are like, hey, I'm following you because I believe you're the way, the truth, and the life. Healing every disease and affliction. So there's where he went, there's what he did. Third thing we've got to emulate is how he felt. Put a star by this one, especially you men. Verse 36. You still with me say amen. Hey, this is the last time I get to preach until August. I'm gonna empty both barrels on you, okay? In love. In love. Look at verse 36. It says, when he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Uh how he felt, what do you mean? Ask yourself this question. What emotion are you known for? What emotion are you known for? Like a lady asked me recently, this is a great question. She goes, Hey, you're a man. Can you help me with this? I said, probably not, but go ahead. She said, Why is it when something happens, something breaks, or one of my kids gets hurt, like they cut their leg or something, my husband gets really angry. It's weird. I mean, I'm trying to find bandages and stuff, and my husband's just yanked into a bad mood. I said, I answer that because we do not do well when we get exposed to this, our inability to control things. A mom jumps in and says, All right, we need band-aids, I need a tourniquet, whatever. The dad's like, I want to fight God. Why'd this happen? Yeah. I said, it's a surge because we we are rubbing up against our powerlessness. And she went, Oh my gosh, I think you're right. I said, me too. That's why I said that. But anyway, how do you feel? What emotion are you known for? Are you known for your compassion, men? You see, we got two things, ethos and pathos. Ethos is your authority, your credibility. That's great. But you need more pathos. Pathos is, hey, this is my emotion. Preaching today is weightless because it's not connected to any emotion in the preacher. A preacher can get up and they can give you the Christological significance of this passage. Jesus is, you know, our older brother. Jesus is like this. And this reminds me of Jesus, and I'm all for that. But there's an emotional sensation called pain empathy. And when this happens, you see someone get hurt, your brain has what's called mirror neurons, which map what you direct what you see directly onto your body. Okay, your mirror neurons in your brain, they uh map what you see directly onto your body, which allows you to physically simulate the sensation. Like when you see somebody get hurt, you ever feel like visceral pain go through your body? That's what that is. The mirror neurons in your brain are kind of like, like I gave you a great example. You can have 17,000 men at a UFC fight and they're all drinking bad beer, but the minute somebody boom and that guy's out on his feet, even Joe Rogan's like, oh, because you have this visceral sensation that goes through you. Now, why am I telling you that? When the Bible says, and Jesus had compassion on them. Uh, the Bible says it's a Greek word, that long, but basically, he was moved to the depth of his bowels because in the biblical times, the bowels were the seat of emotion. And so Jesus was like, whoa, like I saw a guy get hit one time in a UFC fight. He was out on his feet and he was tremoring, he's just going down. And I was just, my it's like electricity went through my body. I was like, Oh, don't hit him again. Don't hit him again. And the other fighter just stepped back and called the referee in. Why? Because that's compassion. It is what Jesus felt. And this is the thing that distinguished him from all the other religious leaders of the day. Because Jesus, as a matter of fact, he told him at one point, he says, Hey, you you tie up bundles that are too heavy to bear and you put them on people's back and you do not lift a finger to help them. One of the things that distinguishes Jesus is that he was moved with compassion, okay? Why would he feel that way? Just two things. Because the people that he came to teach and preach and to die for were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Because their shepherd was off speaking at a conference or baptizing people in a parking lot because he lived out of his preference, not his responsibility. But Jesus, see, to be harassed and helpless, look at me, it meant to be flayed to the bone. You ever flay fish? Got that electric knife? You flip it over, turn it over. These people have been cut to the bone. To be harassed and helpless is to be flayed to the bone and look at me, thrown to the ground. Just thrown to the ground. No one cared about them. The shepherds didn't care about the sheep. They cared about themselves. They fed themselves. Read Ezekiel 34 and see what God says about the shepherds of Israel and how he's going to judge them. Now, what am I saying? Here's what I'm saying. Why do you make a big deal out of this? This whole how he felt. Because, especially if you're a parent, your kids don't need your ethos. They don't need your authority and your credibility, they need your pathos. Especially your adult children that frustrate you because they keep doing the same thing over and over and over and over. They do not need, I'll tell you what, boy God, you better get it sorted. That's the way I was raised. My dad never looked at me and said, son, I have no idea what this is like for you. But I want you to know, as your dad, I feel this. This makes me sad. You must be infinitely more sad. What does this feel like for you? I never got asked that. Matter of fact, I asked people in counseling this question, and I get the same response nine times out of ten. Here's the stupid question I ask. Hey, how were you pursued emotionally as a kid? And men are like, what you talking about, Willis? I mean, how were you? Did people notice your emotions? Nah. I mean, as long as I didn't cause any trouble, kept my head down. I don't think they knew I was there. One guy said I had to be home when the street lights came on. As long as I got home before the street lights came on, everything was fine. If I didn't, I got a whip and I got sent to my room with no supper. But did anybody ever say, hey, I know this is hard for you? No. Here's what I'm saying. Jesus was saying to these people, move to his bowels. What he was saying was, I know what this is like for you. And this is why people flock to him. Here's the last habit of Jesus. I want us to imitate what he prayed. Verse 37. You still with me? Say amen. What do you mean? What he prayed. Look at it right there in the Bible. He's about to run the oaky doke on these people. Verse 37. Then he said to his disciples, The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. We need laborers, not crowds. The problem with the American church is we got people leading them who love crowds. They're addicted to crowds, so everything they do is to get and keep a crowd. But the one thing Jesus prayed for is the one thing we still need is labors. Men and women who get up every day and invest and involve themselves in teaching, proclaiming, and praying for healing. We all should ask ourselves a simple question. Is what Jesus prayed for what you pray for? He had the crowds. He didn't have labors. Now, if you and I are going to be laborers in this harvest, there's two things you got to embrace, okay? Number one, the harvest is plentiful. The harvest is plentiful. Just look at the last two chapters, chapters eight and chapter nine. Look at all the things that happened. He was on his way to this and this happened. And he was going here and this happened. And they came and got him late, and this happened. This happened. Yesterday I went to Sam's against my better judgment. And in the Sam's parking lot, like the cars are all angled like this. I put like, that means you can only go this way. There's an arrow going this way. I'm waiting because the third, the lady's loading groceries in the third slot. Some person sees that and I saw them, they come around behind me. Then they drove around and came in the other way, trying to come the wrong direction. And I'm just in my truck, just like, mm-mm. No, sir. No, sir. And the person looks and waves, and I'm just like, mm-mm. Mm-mm. Not on my watch. And so I inched up a little bit to let them know. Hey, you gotta let them know, as Queen Latifa says. And all of a sudden, out of my guts came this. The harvest is plentiful. There's plenty of people that have need. You don't need this parking space. Yes, I do. Yes, I do. I had my hip replaced. I need an up close parking space. And I found myself putting my truck in reverse and doing this. As I backed up, this person came forward the wrong way. Did I tell you it's the wrong way? Drove over a big white arrow pointing my direction. And then backed into that parking space. Here's the only consolation. I felt so spiritual. So I backed up, went and parked in Egypt, and I walked by, and the person said, Thank you. And I just said, wasn't my idea. Yeah. The harvest is plentiful. Look at me. There's plenty of people that are harassed and helpless. They don't have a shepherd in their life. They don't have anybody they look to and respect enough to follow and feel safe because I follow this person. So if you're going to be laborers, you got to embrace two things. Number one, the harvest is plentiful. Secondly, there is a Lord of the harvest, and you are not Him. Look at me. Some of you parent the way you do because you're trying to be the Lord of the harvest. You have your adult children in for Thanksgiving. You pray Adam. Lord, thank you. You blessed us this year. The business is going well. Sorry that Johnny's life is sucking wind because he doesn't know Jesus. We got plenty of things, we got plenty of turkey and dressing. Johnny's not doing well. I wonder why. But anyway, look at me. You're trying to be the Lord of the harvest. Bless you. You're trying to be the Lord of the harvest. Instead, you should pray to the Lord of the harvest to send laborers. So send somebody to come along, a little Johnny at work. You're not the Lord of the harvest. I'm not the Lord of the harvest. The harvest is plentiful, but there's a Lord of the harvest. He says right here, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to what? To send out laborers into the harvest field. Now notice what Jesus does and we're done, okay? Jesus tells the disciples that they should pray to the Lord of the harvest with send out laborers into his harvest. And then look at chapter 10, verse 1, what he does. And he called to him his 12 disciples and he gave them authority over unclean spirits to cast them out to heal every disease and affliction. Sound familiar? Verse 2 the names of the 12 apostles were first Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, and Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector, James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus, Simon the zealot, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him. These 12 Jesus sent out. Look at me. Jesus runs the okidokal and he says, Hey, pray to the Lord of the harvest. Send laborers into the harvest. And then when he gets done praying, he says, Hey, guess what? You guys are the answer to your prayers. Go. People call me all the time. Hey, Pastor, I know you like helping people. So-and-so's cars broke down. It's $974. You think the church could do anything? And I ask the same thing every time. Tell me what role you can play in answering this prayer. Oh, I can't do anything. We're saving to go to Disney World next December. That's a quote. I grew up in a trailer. You can't roll up on me. And I'm like, yeah, well, Disney World's next December. You can kind of replenish once you have some skin in the game. Well, I just thought somebody told me you like to help people. I like to help people that need help. I don't like to help people that have a preference. I like to help people who embrace their responsibility. What role can you play in answering this prayer? Well, I just thought you you're not complimenting me, you're offending me. Well, oh, okay, never mind. No, no, no. Stay on the phone. I like awkward conversations. This is my kind of party. Look at me. The greatest thing you will ever do, because look at me when we're done. Some of y'all have been praying a prayer for a long time. Be like, God ain't answering. Because you have the capacity to answer the prayer yourself. You're just too selfish. You don't want to part with whatever you got to part with this prayer to be answered. Maybe you should just ask, hey God, am I the answer to my prayer? Or am I trying to, because they're like, hey, oh Lord, I just imagine Peter, Lord, send laborers into the harvest field. The harvest is plentiful. And then Jesus is like, all right, big boy, you're going. No, I like to I like to sit in coffee shops and just kind of talk with people and they come in with my airpods in, and you know, every once in a while I buy someone's coffee. That's my big service of the day. No. What if sometimes you are the answer to your prayers? Let's pray together. If you're a guest, just relax. We like to teach the Bible and then we give you some space to think about it. This is that space, and this is that time. Just ask yourself. Some questions come up on the screen, but just ask yourself, hey, what had my name on it? What is the thing that made me think today? That I gotta I gotta think about maybe after lunch a little bit more. Let's just think for a moment before we're dismissed. Lord, our confession is that we love you, but sometimes we love ourselves a little too much. We love our stuff, we love our money, we love our preferences, Jesus. That's our confession today. But some of us are always cranky, we're perpetually in a bad mood because we're bumping up against the smallness of our preferences. We've never tasted the bigness of our responsibility. So we've become that guy. The perpetually Eeyore. What's wrong with the world? Holy Spirit, would you deliver us from the smallness of our preferences into the bigness of our responsibility? Because that's when the party starts. That's when it gets good. That's when we come home, we got stories to tell that people find hard to believe. It's because they're still clinging to their preferences like it's a life raft in the middle of the ocean. It's a boat anchor that's gonna drown us in smallness. We renounce that in Jesus' name today. Thank you for this in Jesus' name. And all God's people said, Amen. Amen.

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